Assessment of Land Surface Temperature (LST) using MODIS MOD11A2 Thermal Satellite Images Using Zero to Null Pixel Averaging Method for the Bengaluru Urban District

Abstract

Abstract In developing countries like India, rapid urbanisation is inevitable. Bengaluru urban district is one of the rapidly growing cities and newer settlement clusters are keep on growing to accommodate the migrating people from rural areas. One of the ill effects of urbanisation is an increase in impervious areas leading to higher land surface temperature (LST). Reported Studies have mentioned that Landsat thermal data has been utilised for the preparation of LST maps and usage of MODIS data is very limited. The present study attempted to prepare LST maps using 8-day average MODIS MOD11A2 images for the years 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021. “Zero to Null” pixel average method was adopted to prepare the average LST maps yearwise. From the LST maps, it was found that the highest and lowest LSTs observed were 27.41°C and 35.95°C respectively for the years selected. Generated histograms for the LST indicate that the impervious areas have more pixels falling under the category from high to very high-class category.